It's easy to make fun of the Daily Mail, but those of us who indulge in the practice often forget about paper's razor-sharp journalistic instincts, which are nowhere more evident than in this latest gem of a story about a British woman who, at one point in her acid trip of an adulthood, was consuming 50 cans of Diet Coke. Every. Single. Day.

In an effort to manage her weight as a teenager, Jakki Ballan's doctor told her to stop drinking so much regular Coke. It was an easy enough beverage to part with, too, because this other thing existed — Diet Coke, a sweetened soda without any consequences at all. So, Jakki began drinking Diet Coke like it was water. Water filtered through bacon strips with chocolate at the bottom of every glass. Over the course of her young adulthood, she developed a habit that would eventually lead to her consuming 28 pints of Diet Coke per day, which amounted to double her own body weight of Diet Coke each week, which is a lot of fucking Diet Coke.

Miss Ballan said she suffers constant headaches and recently began experiencing hallucinations which she blames on the drink.

'I see strange things like oranges flying across the room,' she said. 'I dread to think what my insides look like.'

Miss Ballan recently visited her GP, but he told her there was nothing he could do.

But Dr Sarah Schenker, a dietitian for the British Dietetic Association, urged her to try cognitive behavioural therapy – as she said the phosphoric acid contained in the drink would eventually damage her bones.

She added: 'This woman is suffering cravings that are influencing her life. Diet Coke is part of her routine and the reward system in her brain may be responding to it.'

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Nevermind the fact that Diet Coke consumption can get pretty expensive — Jakki estimates she's spent about £150,000 on Diet Coke, which means that she's spent about $1 billion (or so) to melt her own teeth.